Address of ECAJ Deputy President Robert Goot AO SC to World Jewish Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Robert Goot AO SC is also chair of the World Jewish Congress’ policy council.
This version of his address with introductory notes was first published in the Australian Jewish News.
Kol Yi arevim zeh ba zeh – all of Israel are responsible for each other.
Especially since October 7, the heart of Jews everywhere beat together. So it was that last Thursday, leaders of the Jewish world – in the presence of the Presidents of Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, ministers, special envoys to combat antisemitism, ambassadors, parliamentarians, and other leaders of civil society from 47 countries – joined thousands of Argentinian Jews gathered in Buenos Aires.
They met at the plenary session of the International Conference of Special Envoys, Parliamentarians and Jewish leaders under the auspices of the World Jewish Congress and its regional affiliate the Latin American Jewish Congress, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the barbaric act of terrorism perpetrated on 18 July 1994, when a bomb laden van was detonated in the AMIA community centre in Buenos Aires, killing 85 and injuring over 300 innocent Argentinian civilians. I was given the honour on behalf of the Jewish leadership, of addressing the audience of more than 1,000 at that plenary session.
The AMIA bombing which followed the 17 March 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 and injuring 242 innocents, remains the deadliest terror attack in Argentina and until the unspeakable events of October 7, the deadliest single attack against Jews since the Shoah.
Both events in Buenos Aires were terrorist attacks on Jewish institutions designed to kill as many Jews as possible. Both attacks were sponsored and planned by the Iranian Islamic theocracy. Both events were part of a pattern of heinous crimes, not just against the Jewish people, but against non-Jews as well – indeed they were crimes against humanity. A pattern that continues to this day.
We stand with our brothers and sisters of the Argentinian Jewish community, to pay homage and to honour the victims and express our enduring and heartfelt support to their families and to the survivors of those bombings.
They are the ones who for 32 years have grieved, have agonised over and suffered from, not just the catastrophic events themselves, but also from the alleged, mishandling, intrigue, incompetence and corruption, that has marred the investigation into the bombings and has failed to bring anyone to justice. 114 dead, 542 injured and not one conviction – no justice.
Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman published an indictment accusing the Iranian Government of directing the bombing, and Hezbollah of carrying it out. In January 2015, Alberto Nisman, filed a 300-page complaint making accusations of a “cover up” of the Iranian citizens allegedly involved in the AMIA bombing. Three days later, on the day he was to address the government on his complaint, Alberto Nisman was found dead at his home in Buenos Aires, in suspicious circumstances. In a very real sense, the courageous and principled Nisman whose widow is in the audience, became the 86th victim of the AMIA bombing.
But finally some positive developments. On 11 April 2024, almost 30 years after it occurred, the highest criminal court in Argentina, held that: the AMIA bombing was organized, planned, financed and executed under the direction of the Islamic State of Iran; was carried out by Hezbollah; was a crime against humanity; and that Tehran was also to blame for the Israel Embassy bombing.
And the Argentinian Parliament has before it proposed legislation giving Argentinian Courts the jurisdiction to try in absentia, those behind the bombings and just last week the Government proscribed Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
This has been an agonising and torturous road travelled by the families of the victims and the survivors. But their journey for justice is not yet over.
The tyrannical theocracy of Iran and its proxy Hezbollah, were responsible for the 1992 and 1994 bombings, just as that regime and its proxy Hamas, were responsible for the utter depravity that was visited upon Israel and its citizens on October 7.
We are horrified by the tragic and senseless loss of life and the suffering of the families of victims and of the survivors, as well as by the generations of Jews who will continue to be traumatised by these events.
Let us understand, that each of these murderous attacks, were not simply attacks on Jews or Israelis, but jihad, seeking to undermine and eventually replace: the rules of law; western democratic values; and ultimately, our governments and way of life.
And let there be no misunderstanding either, that there can never be any equivalence between the barbaric acts we commemorate here and Israel’s right to defend itself in its existential battle against Iran and its terrorist proxies.
Governments and civil society together, must bear firmly in mind, the words of the German playwright Bertolt Brecht, in his unmistakeable reference to Hitler, in the play “The Rise of the Resistible Arturo Ui”, when he wrote, with brutal accuracy:
“For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again.”
We will prevail. We must prevail. Together we will redouble our efforts, to put a stop to the scourge of antisemitism. Am Y’Israel chai.
